


For Old Times' Sake

by irisbleufic



Series: Glow [3]
Category: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (TV 2016)
Genre: Caretaking, Dreams, Established Relationship, Flashbacks, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, Idiots in Love, Illnesses, M/M, Male-Female Friendship, Mona Wilder Is Wonderful, Nightmares, Platonic Cuddling, Project Blackwing (Dirk Gently), Protectiveness, References to Riggins and Priest in Flashback, Sick Character, Todd Brotzman is a Good Boyfriend
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-16
Updated: 2018-09-16
Packaged: 2019-07-13 07:40:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16013363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/irisbleufic/pseuds/irisbleufic
Summary: Todd got up, leaving Dirk to flop face-first, softly whimpering, into the warm spot he’d vacated.“Hey, wait a minute,” Todd said, pressing the back of his hand to Dirk’s cheek.  “Are you sick?”“No,” Dirk whined into the pillow, swallowing painfully.  “I’m just disinclined to be vertical due to—” he rolled over, finding that his limbs felt heavy “—a bunch of random aches and pains.”





	For Old Times' Sake

Amongst the items on Dirk’s revised list of favorite things in the world, waking up next to Todd was definitely somewhere near the top. At least the first five to ten items now had something to do with Todd—or, in a few instances, with _doing_ Todd.

For now, waking up was the one Dirk was in the midst of, and it felt indescribably nice. He was cold even though the covers were nearly over their heads, so nuzzling into Todd’s messy hair and spooning him tighter was necessary. He shivered, ignoring the prickle in his throat.

“C’mon,” Todd murmured, rubbing Dirk’s arm. “We’ve been doing this for like half an hour.”

“Cuddling,” Dirk mumbled, tongue uncooperative, “shouldn’t have… _thing_. Time limit.”

“You wanted us to start, I quote,” said Todd, with a smile in his voice, “exercising discipline.”

“Ugh,” Dirk said, snuggling closer even as Todd disentangled himself from Dirk’s arm around his middle, “responsible-me is the _worst_ , so maybe don’t…listen to him?”

Todd got up, leaving Dirk to flop face-first, softly whimpering, into the warm spot he’d vacated.

“Hey, wait a minute,” Todd said, pressing the back of his hand to Dirk’s cheek. “Are you sick?”

“No,” Dirk whined into the pillow, swallowing painfully. “I’m just disinclined to be vertical due to—” he rolled over, finding that his limbs felt heavy “—a bunch of random aches and pains.”

Todd sat down on the bed beside him, frowning as he pressed his other hand to Dirk’s forehead.

“Holy shit,” he said, moving his hands until he was pressing against the sides of Dirk’s neck, beneath his jaw, with all ten fingertips. “You’re burning up, Dirk. Your glands are swollen.”

Dirk couldn’t find a suitable excuse for either of those observations. His brain-to-mouth connection was failing, but it might be attributable to Todd looking at him with such tender concern.

“Comes of—of, you know,” he tried, blinking hazily at Todd. “Doing lots of stressy stuff.”

“Stressy,” echoed Todd, doubtful, stroking Dirk’s hair back from his damp forehead. “Right.”

Dirk wanted to sit up and throw his arms around Todd’s neck, to chase the pout right off his face.

“I would kiss you,” Dirk said, displeased to find that putting words in the correct order took gargantuan effort, “but it feels like somebody put lead weights inside my skull.”

“You’re sick,” Todd said, stroking Dirk’s cheek. “You shouldn’t come with me to meet the potential client today. It’s bad enough I might expose them to what you have.”

“S’not _fair_ ,” Dirk managed, catching hold of Todd’s wrists. “First proper one since we…”

“A lot of things aren’t,” Todd agreed, bending down to kiss his forehead. “I’ll take Farah.”

“Tina will be here?” Dirk asked hopefully, fighting off a stab of panic beneath the heaviness that wanted to drag him back to sleep. “Mona, maybe?” he went on. “And Jaws?”

“Jaws is next to the door as we speak,” Todd promised. “Doing that guarding thing she does.”

Dirk nodded, reassured, rubbing his cheek against Todd’s palm. “Very dependable shark.”

“Not anymore, but okay,” Todd sighed, not about to argue regarding the inherent shark-ness of their feline companion even post-extraction of the ghost by Amanda’s crew. “Hang on.”

Todd pulled the covers up to Dirk’s chin, rose, and left the room, leaving Dirk to ponder the severity of what he’d contracted. His thoughts were a mass of static, and he wanted to sleep.

Jaws hopped onto the bed, mewling inquisitively as she butted her silky head right in Dirk’s face.

“If this is cat flu, I really hope you’re already immune,” Dirk said, gently flattening her twitchy ears beneath his uncoordinated fingertips. “Wouldn’t do to have us both laid up.”

Purring loudly, Jaws curled up in the middle of Dirk’s chest, planting her paws against his chin.

“Humans can’t get cat flu,” Todd said, coming back in with a glass and bottle in hand. “She kinda takes care of the hot water bottle problem,” he said, sitting back down beside Dirk, popping the bottle’s cap. “Ibuprofen. I need you to swallow these.”

Dirk lifted his head just enough for Todd to place two pills between his lips, and then press a glass there. Swallowing hurt unreasonably; Dirk shivered with the unpleasantness of it.

“You have chills,” Todd said, getting up again, and this time Dirk closed his eyes, too exhausted to watch. An extra layer of weight settled over him, and Jaws struggled beneath it before dashing off. “It’s the extra comforter from your old place. That enough?”

“Todd,” Dirk mumbled, reaching for him, too thoroughly trapped to do much, “please don’t…”

Todd’s footsteps came right up beside him, and Todd touched Dirk’s face again, reassuring.

“You need to rest,” he said firmly, fussing with the covers. “I’ll only be gone for a few hours.”

Unable to argue with such a reasonable, loving tone, Dirk nodded and let himself drift off.

_“Not this week,” said a voice recognizable as Riggins, somewhere beyond the layers of scratchy covers and inscrutable bulletproof glass along the opposite wall. “He’s too ill.”_

_“Response under immunocompromised duress might be of value,” replied the strange, lazy drawl that had lately joined the roster of voices that Dirk struggled to track. “Look at the others.”_

_“Priest, the others are never—_ ah _,” Riggins said, understanding something Dirk did not._

_“Painfully mortal in comparison to the girls, little Icarus,” replied Priest. “Wouldn’t you agree?”_

_“It appears so,” Riggins allowed, “which is why I don’t want to test that theory any time soon.”_

_Dirk folded his pillow over his head, shaking with the intensity of his chills. He knew enough to understand that they were arguing about whether he should be tested in this condition, about whether the fever would affect his results. The girls, that meant Mona and someone else._

_“Leave them alone,” Dirk said aloud, his lungs seizing. “Can you hear me? I said leave…”_

_The coughing fit that overtook him seemed to catch both Riggins’s and Priest’s attention._

_“Maybe we ought to send Lamia in,” said Priest. “Calm him down, see if she catches it and recovers again lickety-split. Kill two birds with one stone. As for Marzanna—”_

_“I won’t expose him to a force that might believe he needs to die,” Riggins said. “I refuse.”_

_Dirk squeezed his eyes shut and kicked the foot of the bedframe. He already knew Mona couldn’t get sick, knew it as well as Mona knew it herself._

_He hadn’t been allowed to see her in weeks. If only they’d send her in, even if only for a little while, if only—_

“I said,” Dirk panted helplessly, kicking fretfully at the covers, “I want you to leave them alone!”

“ _Shhh_ ,” Mona whispered, peeling back the blankets, slipping under the sheets beside him. “Dirk.”

Chest heaving, Dirk coughed and turned his back on her, shaking with the nightmare’s intensity.

“Todd sounded very silly asking every chair in the room to keep an eye on you,” Mona said, sliding one strong, slender arm around his middle like she had when they were kids. “On his way out,” she clarified, hugging Dirk tightly, “but I was listening.”

“I hated being sick,” Dirk whispered, “but kind of liked it, too. Respite. And I got to see you.”

“Riggins knew if I got infected, it wouldn’t stick,” Mona said. “He wanted to make you happy.”

“He used to bring me things to do,” Dirk said quietly. “Puzzle books. Choose Your Own Adventures. I mean, the one I wrote was _way_ better than the library stock, but…”

Mona frowned as he coughed again, pressing a hand to Dirk’s cheek. Her skin was always dry to the touch—cool as water, light as wind. She could cast off sickness in a single transformation.

“Tina is downstairs listening to Todd’s CDs,” Mona said, kicking the covers down further, helping him sit up. “Drink,” she said, twisting sideways, snatching the glass off the nightstand.

Dirk gulped down half of it, realizing that at least part of his problem might be dehydration.

“How long have Todd and Farah been gone?” Dirk asked raggedly, finding breathing difficult.

“An hour and seventeen minutes,” Mona said matter-of-factly. “I was a clock. I counted.”

Dirk grimaced at her, slumping back against the pillows. “That’s not terribly long, is it?”

“No,” Mona said sadly, and then brightened. “I could bring you the cat or a book,” she offered.

“You could _be_ a cat or a book, but I doubt Jaws would appreciate competition,” Dirk replied with rueful chagrin. “Could you just be…like you are, right now? Like you used to be?”

“For old times’ sake,” said Mona, pulling Todd’s music magazine off the nightstand. “I’ll read.”


End file.
